childrens cothes

[chegarty]

I have a 8 yr old a 2 yr( both boys) and out of financial necessity I must save all "good" condition clothes for my youngest. I have clothes for him starting at like 4/t5t up though what my ods just grew out of.I naturally don't save items that are not is reusable condition. ODS gets hand me downs from our friends who have twin that are a little older, but are if different sizes- we get lots from them when the seasons change. We just got to garbage bags full. We generally don't have seasonal clothes, as winters don't get to cold here.

Once yds grows out of his clothes they go to a donation place or I find someone who needs them to give them to. Basically I have a lot of clothes that are being used right now in my house.

I don't really know how to organize them to maximize space. I need to keep them any suggestions?

[cherylchoo]

I used to do this with my girls before the younger caught up with the older in size. What I found worked best for me, was to get banker boxes at an office supply store (they are between $1-2 each, but are in multipacks) and store by size, and if ore than one box per size, season or tops/bottoms. You could of course hit the liquor store and get boxes for free, but for me it was worth the $1 a box to have them all the same size, easily stackable and labeled, have the lid to the box, etc to make it easier to store and retrieve/refill on demand. Also, that way, if your youngest outgrows a whole size/season, it is much easier to purge the whole set because it is already separated out.

I also did this to save stuff for my youngest, who turned out to be a boy. So I had saved each size by GN and girly. And when he was born and we found out he was a boy, I was able to have half a dozen little girls from my playgroup come with their mom and "shop" for girly clothes, and it was already sorted by size. I wound up giving most it all away in 2 days to friends and only had to take a small amount to Goodwill.

[chegarty]

pp I love that idea. I think I'll do that with the bankers boxes. I never thought of that. Thank you. I'll probably need a bunch!

[cherylchoo]

Banker boxes are AWESOME for baby/toddler clothes. Not so much when they get older. But it's great for baby clothes, and a great way to limit what you keep/store. Say like only one box of each size, or one box of girly/one box of GN each size, etc. When you get up to 4T and higher, then it's not as helpful unless you are doing only one size of tops, one size of bottoms, etc and then when you get to size 6 and higher they are really only good for summer clothes and PJs. I have since had to upgrade to plastic totes for my kids, one big tote of size up/out of season clothes.

[moms5angels]

i do this for all 5 of my kids. i save enough clothes for a whole wardrobe of each size. then i put them into spags bags & mark the size of the clothes on the space bags. i store them in storage totes. the rest i donate. (except for my 8yr old since he chews on his clothes due to sensory issues. i save a few extra for him)

[chegarty]

Gotcha thanks

[threestraycats]

yup, banker's boxes or storage containers labeled by size. a great idea from tightwad gazette if you have read that...she outlines a whole system for it.

check your local library.

[chegarty]

I have that book, but I find it confusing to find things. Hmm I'll have to figure out where in the book it is! Thanks

[poopstermomma]

I store clothes sorted by boy/girl, and by size. I use large rubbermaid containers for a couple reasons- the main one is that I actually store groups of sizes together. My first girl bin is newborn, 0-3, 3 months, and 3-6mos. The reason for this is that many many many of those clothes are about the same fit! If baby can fit in 0-3, it's likely many of the 3-6 stuff is going to fit or is about to fit. I would rather save less clothes and have a few outfits be a bit large for a few weeks.

I have a small tip- store clothes with the smallest size they can "fit". So if you have a 6-9 months shirt but you know it runs small and that your 3 month old wore it, be sure to put it in the 3-6 month bin. It's no fun opening a bin to find already outgrown clothes!

Another tip- I stack clothes by season in the bins. My DD stayed in some sizes (like 18 months) for a loooong time, so I have multiple seasons of 18 month clothes. I stack short sleeve on one side, and long on the other, so I can see how much of each season I have and don't save too much of one season.

Final tip- Only save what you love. Don't bother play clothes or stuff you didn't really like.